A Wideband Reflectarray Based on Single-Layer Magneto-Electric Dipole Elements With 1-bit Switching Mode

A single-layer wideband low-cost linearly polarized reflectarray with 1 bit magnetoelectric (ME) dipole as the unit cell is presented. The 180 degrees reflection phase difference between the two states for the unit cell is realized by switching the ground-signal-ground (GSG) transmission line between open and short to the ground in the ME dipole structure. The corresponding numerical simulations of the reflectarray unit cell show that the bandwidth of the reflection phase difference within 180 degrees +/- 20 degrees is more than 34% under both normal and oblique incidences. Moreover, the insertion loss is lower than 0.35 dB over the entire Ku-band benefiting from the concise phase shifting structure. Two static reflectarray prototypes for collimated beam at theta = 15 degrees and phi = 0 degrees and theta = 15 degrees and phi = 90 degrees are designed and fabricated. The measurement results of the reflectarray verify a great advantage of wideband performance, with over 32% bandwidth for 1.5 dB gain variation below the maximum value in both phi = 0 degrees and phi = 90 degrees planes.

Automated summary

This study presents a single-layer wideband low-cost linearly polarized reflectarray using 1 bit magnetoelectric (ME) dipoles as unit cells. The 180 degrees reflection phase difference for the unit cell is achieved by switching the ground-signal-ground (GSG) transmission line between open and short in the ME dipole structure. Numerical simulations show that the bandwidth of the reflection phase difference exceeds 34% under both normal and oblique incidences. The measured results of the reflectarray prototypes demonstrate a great advantage of wideband performance.